Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A Brief History of Korea

Starting point is 00:00:00 For thousands of years, Korea has stood at the crossroads of East Asia, shaped by powerful neighbors, yet never defined by them. It's been home to ancient kingdoms, Buddhist temples, Confucian scholars, devastating invasions, colonial rule, war, division, and one of the most remarkable economic and cultural turnarounds in modern history. Yet despite everything, they find themselves in the 21st century independent, yet divided. Learn more about the history of Korea. On this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Saly. When you travel internationally, staying connected can be a pain, something I have learned

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Starting point is 00:02:24 Peninsula. Although many of the subjects to be covered may warrant a dedicated episode in the future, this discussion is just going to focus on the pivotal historical events that help make Korea what it is. Korea is one of the great civilizations of East Asia, yet its history has been unlike that of any of its neighbors, and has often been subject to their rule. At the heart of Korea's origin story is a foundational myth preserved by early chroniclers in a series of narratives known as the Ten Gun. According to the 13th century manuscript, which was likely compiled by a monk from earlier oral traditions, Huang Gong, the son of the Lord of Heaven, descended to earth to live

Starting point is 00:03:07 closer to people. The legend notes that a bear and a tiger prayed to him to become human. Juan Ong then gave them a test. Stay out of the sunlight and eat only garlic and mugwort for a hundred days, and he would make them human. The tiger quit, but the bear persevered and transformed into a woman named Ongyo. She married Huang Ong and their son, Dan Gun, established the kingdom of Ossadal, near the modern-day city of Pyongyang. There are many Paleolithic sites throughout the Korean Peninsula, and some studies suggest that humans have occupied it for more than 20,000 years. Urban consolidation of the area began more than 7,000 years ago with the formation of rice-cultivating Neolithic communities along Korea's river systems. Archaeologists trace the rise of these communities

Starting point is 00:03:57 through their distinctive artifacts, including bronze daggers, massive stone tombs, and impressive pottery. The history of the region becomes clearer from Chinese writings dating, back to 1000 BC during the Zhao dynasty, which first mentions the Korean Peninsula as Chosan. Our knowledge of early Korean history largely comes from Chinese sources due to the region's limited literary development until the development of the Korean script in the 15th century. Although the early inhabitants of the Korean Peninsula relied on an oral tradition, they adopted Chinese characters following interactions between the Gojo-Sian or Old Chosun Kingdom, in the Han Dynasty approximately 2,000 years ago.

Starting point is 00:04:42 During chaotic periods of Chinese history, such as the warring states period, Chinese peasants often migrated in large numbers to the Korean Peninsula. After the Han conquest of the Gojo-Sian kingdoms, China launched a state-sponsored colonization of the peninsula. Confucianism and the establishment of an imperial bureaucracy staffed by a civil service exam system were adopted in the Korean Peninsula. Korean kingdoms, which had often been decentralized, quickly began consolidating into larger states,

Starting point is 00:05:13 governed according to Chinese principles of imperial centralization. The three kingdoms period in Korea, not to be confused with the three kingdoms period in China, ran from 57 BC to the mid-7th century. During this period, three rival highly centralized kingdoms dominated the Korean peninsula in large parts of Manchuria. They were the Gogu Riu,

Starting point is 00:05:36 the Pakchi and the Shila. Of this group, the Shila emerged as the key player on the peninsula, thanks in large part to their military alliance with the Tang Dynasty in China. The Shila-Tang Alliance enabled Shila to unify Korea under their rule. While the partnership helped them assume dominion over the peninsula, it immediately created challenges as the Tang sought to colonize Korea, prompting the Shila to take up arms to drive them out in the late side. 17th century. The Shilla gradually moved away from certain core Chinese values, including

Starting point is 00:06:12 Confucian meritocracy. In the 6th century, the Shila leaders adopted a lineage-based social organization called the Bone Rank System, or Galpum. The Galpum created a rigid caste system that divided people into royalty, nobility, and comiters. At the top tier, only those with royal blood held eligibility to join the royal court and leadership class, angering those who had previously risen on the basis of their merit. The system didn't just outline political leadership. It also defined Korea's social customs. Your bone rank determined your attire, your profession, your housing, marriage options, and wealth. A seventh century Korean source, the Samguk Sagi, illustrated how the system imposed limitations on lower groups in Korean society and why many of them

Starting point is 00:07:05 were driven to migrate to China. It notes, quote, in Chila, the bone rank is the key to employment. If one is not of the nobility, no matter what his talents, he cannot achieve a high rank. I wish to travel to China, display rare resources and perfect meritorious deeds, and thereby open a path to glory in splendor that I might wear the robes and sword of an official and serve close the Son of Heaven. End quote. When the rival Goryo dynasty took control of the peninsula in the 10th century, it systematically dismantled the hereditary caste system, replacing it with a meritocratic Confucian Chinese-style civil service system. The system flourished until the Mongol invasions reached the Korean Peninsula in the 13th century. The Koreans fought valiantly against the Mongols,

Starting point is 00:07:54 but they proved impossible to resist. The Mongols destroyed the Goryo Dynasty, in Korea, ultimately driving the ruling class into exile. The Mongol occupation resulted in the widespread ruin of the Korean Peninsula. Through a campaign of massive cultural destruction, they raised native treasures like the Huang Yongsha Pagoda, incinerated Korean literature, and dismantled the fundamental structures of the nation's governance and heritage. The death toll is unknown, but historians place the number of Korean dead at nearly a million. The leader of Mongol China, Kubla Khan, made the Korean peninsula a subject state of the great conate.

Starting point is 00:08:34 This subservient arrangement required unquestioned obedience and mandated that the Korean leadership reside at the Mongol court. To achieve the next phase of their expansion, the invasion of Japan, the Mongols required a massive naval fleet. To that end, the Mongols systematically stripped the Korean landscape of trees. They clear-cut the force of Korea sacrificing even young trees to supply the Mongol Navy, ushering in a wave of ecological devastation. Korea required centuries to recover from this calamity. The resurrection of the Korean state fell to Korea's most famous dynasty, the Chosan. The Chosan dynasty ruled Korea after the Mongols left and governed the peninsula until the dawn of the 20th century.

Starting point is 00:09:22 The Chosan oversaw a golden age. in which Seoul began to emerge as the prominent administrative center. Seoul became synonymous with the resurgence of the Chinese-style civil service bureaucracy and subsequently became a center of learning. But outsiders knew very little about Seoul, for in the wake of the Mongol occupation, the Chosan adopted a very strict form of isolation. Korea became referred to as the Hermit Kingdom. Unlike their Asian neighbors, the Chosan resisted all European involvement and limited their interaction to trade agreements with Japan and diplomatic exchanges with Qing China. Despite its isolation, the Chosan enjoyed a technological boom. The Chosan

Starting point is 00:10:08 fully maximized the legacy of movable type printing, which was originally developed in Korea centuries before the Gutenberg Press. The Chosan took full advantage of this foundation by developing a new written script known as the Hangul alphabet. Scholars have praised this writing system for its simplicity and ease of use, containing only 28 phonetic symbols that capture the intricacies of Korean speech. It was widely taught in schools, leading to an explosion in literacy across the peninsula. The expansion of literacy created an equality of opportunity on the state-sponsored bureaucratic examinations. This expansion didn't stop with Confucian exams, though.

Starting point is 00:10:50 It continued into the halls of Korean science. The dynasty's most famous ruler, King Sejong, established the Hall of Worthies, a royal research institute that produced innovations to improve Korean life. Like the House of Wisdom during the Abbasid Caliphate, this institute achieved great things, including the invention of advanced rain gauges, water clocks, and sundials, as well as revolutionary agricultural manuals, tailored to Korean soils. Following a destructive period of conflict with Japan in the 16th century,

Starting point is 00:11:22 the Chosan dynasty ushered in a remarkable era of peace and stability. Known as the two centuries of peace, this isolationist era lasted from the early 1600s to the mid-19th century, during which the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan and the Korean state maintained peaceful diplomatic ties. But this peace and stability gradually came to an end in the late 19th century, as an industrial and imperial Japan expanded its regional hegemony, forcing Korea to sign the first of its unequal treaties in 1876. This opened the door for European and Western powers to follow suit, rapidly fracturing the

Starting point is 00:12:03 nation's isolation. Korean independence collapsed in 1910 as the rapidly expanding Japanese state swallowed up the peninsula. Korea's experience under Japanese military rule proved a dark and painful chapter. Koreans still find the period so painful that they often refer to its initial decade as the dark period. Korean suffered from forced labor, sexual abuse, and military conscription. Observers have

Starting point is 00:12:31 widely chronicled these abuses, including British journalist Fred McKenzie, who covered the trauma of the Japanese occupation firsthand. He noted quote, the forms of torture freely employed include among others, the stripping, beating, kicking, flogging, and outraging of schoolgirls

Starting point is 00:12:47 and young women. The burning of men, women, and children by searing their bodies with hot irons, stringing men up by their thumbs, beating them with bamboo and iron rods until unconscious." End quote. Japan's control over Korea was ultimately one of resource extraction. They gave no thought to the human rights of the Korean people. But despite this, Japan ended up actually building modern infrastructure across the peninsula.

Starting point is 00:13:13 The Japanese built extensive railway networks, telegraph lines, modern seaports, hydroelectric dams, and heavy industrial chemical plants. Japan didn't intend to develop Korea. It was simply pursuing its own interests. Nonetheless, the process did put Korea on a path towards modernization in the post-World War II period. The defeat of the Japanese in the Second World War opened the door to the partition of Korea, with communist North Korea aligning with the Soviet Union and China

Starting point is 00:13:43 and the South aligning with the United States and the Western world. These challenges ultimately played out in the Korean War, which I've covered in a previous episode. Technically, the war never ended. There has only been a ceasefire which has been in effect for over 70 years. North and South Korea have evolved into vastly different states. North Korea has continued the tradition of being a hermit state, isolating itself and its people from the rest of the world. Since the end of the Cold War, South Korea has undergone one of the most dramatic transformations in history. It emerged from the war devastated, impoverished, and politically unstable. But after decades of turmoil, South Korea has emerged not only as one of the wealthiest countries in the

Starting point is 00:14:27 world, but also as one of the most culturally powerful, with K-pop and Korean movies and television consumed worldwide. The story of Korea isn't over. South Korea currently has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, which means it will experience massive social upheaval in the future, no matter what happens. Despite centuries of invasion and control by its neighbors, the Korean Peninsula today is independent, albeit divided. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer.

Starting point is 00:15:06 Research in writing for this episode was provided by Joel Hermanson. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord, as this is where everything happens outside of the podcast. As always, if you leave a review on any of the major podcast apps, you too can have it run in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A Brief History of Korea

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